People have told me _ad nauseam_ (and they still tell me so) that
beautiful verse is inimical to music, or rather that music is inimical
to good verse; that music demands ordinary verse, rhymed prose, rather
than verse, which is malleable and reducible as the composer wishes.
This generalization is assuredly true, if the music is written first and
then adapted to the words, but that is not the ideal harmony between two
arts which are made to supplement each other. Do not the rhythmic and
sonorous passages of verse naturally call for song to set them off,
since singing is but a better method of declaiming them? I made some
attempts at this and some of those which have been preserved are:
_Puisque ici bas toute ame_, _Le Pas d'armes du roi Jean_, and _La
Cloche_. They were ridiculed at the time, but destined to some success
later. Afterwards I continued with _Si tu veux faisons un reve_, which
Madame Carvalho sang a good deal, _Soiree en mer_, and many others.
The older I grew the greater became my devotion to Hugo. I waited
impatiently for each new work of the poet and I devoured it as soon as
it appeared. If I heard about me the spiteful criticisms of irritating
critics, I was consoled by talking to Berlioz who honored me with his
friendship and whose admiration for Hugo equalled mine.
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